Well played @GoatersLeftShin this has been a pick that has raised some really interesting discussion! Organising my thoughts on it has been quite difficult partly because I’ve found it hard to review an individual Beatles album on its merits without all the baggage that goes with it.
I think the comments about the blue and red albums is interesting, I am a bit too young to remember the Beatles releasing their albums and like so many others my introduction to them was through those two albums. There does seem to be a palpable difference between those who were there at the time and those of us for whom the Beatles were (albeit recent) musical history. There must have been something very special about hearing this and other Beatles albums on their release and see them shape popular taste.
As for Revolver…
Per Rob I don’t find any cohesion to the album, but I don’t get the sense that was what they were trying to do, it’s a set of explorations off in various directions, so it’s probably unfair to mark it down for that. It’s simply a collection of songs, most of which are interesting and a few of which are extraordinary. So in terms of personal response to the music it is a mixed bag for me.
My favourite tracks are
Eleanor Rigby, despite it’s over familiarity I personally don’t understand how people can say it’s overrated, I think it’s one of the most extraordinary pieces of pop music ever made.
Here, There and Everywhere, I rattled on about this at length in a previous post. It’s not the definitive version but they wrote the thing so I can hardly have a pop at it.
And Your Bird Can Sing, a perfect pop song and an example that for all their undoubted innovation to me their true genius was the ability craft perfect pop songs with the kind of hooks and riffs that most writers would be happy to produce just once in their career.
She Said She Said and Dr Robert, are both songs which have been the template for other songs that’s I’ve enjoyed over the years so they both get a thumbs up too.
Now for a bit of a tangential rant about Taxman. Musically I think it is brilliant but for years and years the lyrics have really wound me up. At the risk of sounding like a pound shop Billy Bragg, if you are going to write a ‘political’ song then I can think of a whole lot better things to address than whining about tax rates for the wealthy. I don’t care how tongue in cheek it was, how funny it actually is, how unfair Wilson’s 95% rate was at the time or how it supposedly nearly bankrupted a couple of them, I’m just not up for millionaires moaning about taxation as protest song. Whilst I’m not blaming George Harrison for the rise of late 70’s early 80’s neo-liberal conservatism I think in his own tiny way he unwittingly contributed to the IMO corrosive narrative that taxes are a form of theft by the state from the individual. This was a narrative that said Neo-cons were able to harness very effectively in the decades following which to me has been a great detriment to society. I’m not trying to bring politics into the thread, but I just needed to explain why such a good piece of music actually grinds my gears, which is in itself really annoying. The inconsiderate bugger should just have written a different lyric about shagging or flowers or something and all would be good. There, glad I got that off my chest.
As for the rest of the album...
I can only imagine how incredibly different and radical songs like Love To You, Tomorrow Never Knows, sounded to a mainstream audience who might not have been into the early psychedelic music. I’m not well up enough on 60’s music to understand the degree to which the Beatles were the real innovators, but they must take credit for bringing so much to a wider audience. As an aside I’ve never found the whole psychodrama around the bands’ relationship with drugs and each other particularly interesting but I know for other people the dynamic of the band itself is of interest and part of the mythology too.
I’m Only Sleeping, Gooday Sunshine, I Want To Tell You and Got To Get You Into My Life are songs that I can appreciate as well-crafted songs but that don’t really do anything for me at an emotional level. Similarly, I know Yellow Submarine is clever and was a part of my childhood and remains a part of our adulthood (going down with a billion in the bank et al) but the reality is I would not consciously choose to play it.
In a previous post I said I thought Lennon and McCartney were the equals of the Gershwin’s and the likes of Richard Rogers and Lorenzo Hart; I would say they deserve to be considered the equal of anyone in the 20th century really and I am including the likes of Stravinsky in this.
So, if I’m scoring this as a (very) amateur musicologist it would probably get a 10, but I’m not; I’m scoring it as a listener with a visceral as well as intellectual response to the music. I think this might be where the difference kicks in between those who remember these albums being released at the time. I was inclined to give it 7 but I do think I am probably holding this to a higher standard than other picks, possibly because of its ‘best ever’ status (which has in turn also made me think about being a bit less generous with my other scores going forward).
So it’s an 8 from me.
